Public utilities and industrial firms that utilize bucket trucks, cherrypickers, or overhead cranes normally provide an exit rope for the use of the operator in the event of an emergency or power failure of the said truck or crane. In many cases, the operator has suffered severe injuries, while making a descent to the ground, when the rope has slid along the edge of the bucket or other surface from which the exit has been made. The rope has a tendency to slide in a direction toward the point of attachment of the end of the rope to a point where the rope drops off the said bucket or other surface. The operator has then fallen for a distance of as much as six feet before being brought to an abrupt halt and has usually suffered internal and/or spinal injuries, as a result of forces exerted by the safety belt. At times, the rope has been damaged or cut. In some cases, the operator has come into contact with live, current-carrying, electrical wires, as a result of the sliding rope. Similar injuries have occurred, when a person, in attempting to escape from an upper story of a burning building, has used a rope suspended over a window sill.
This device was invented in order to prevent such mishaps and injuries; it holds the exit rope at a fixed position on the surface from which descent to the ground is being made. The device prevents the rope from sliding along the edge of the said surface in a direction towards the point of attachment of the rope, which the rope tends to do when the weight of the person descending is applied to the free end of the rope. The inventor has, therefore, named this invention a "direction altering device". The exiting person may thus descend without being abruptly dropped and may choose any clear straight path to the ground, thereby avoiding wires or any other obstacles. The use of the device, also, prevents the rope from being damaged or cut during the descent.